Search

I love Autumn. Texas doesn’t get very much in the way of autumnal weather, unfortunately–we sort of skip straight from the heat of Summer into the everything-is-dead-and-cold of Winter, so I treasure the Fall. I fight the onset of Christmas in order to focus on pumpkins and leaves and turkey. (Christmas is my favorite holiday, but it seems to come earlier and earlier every year, and I run out of enthusiasm by December if I start getting into the Christmas spirit in September).

Here are some things that I’ve been doing with my Autumn:

Something about the weather puts me in the mood for baking, and last week I decided to try my hand at my very first pie, with my very first from-scratch pie crust. It was not at all as difficult as I had been led to believe! In fact, it was easy–easy as pie, if you will. It was time consuming (although a lot of my time went to assembling and then learning to use the apple peeler-corer-slicer that my mother inherited from my grandmother) but so worth it. I made the crust following the instructions in a recent issue of Better Homes & Gardens, and then made the basic apple pie filling found in the red plaid Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. I used six Granny Smith apples, although not all of the apple found its way into the pie…did I mention that there was a learning curve involved with the apple peeler-corer-slicer? Let’s just say that there was a certain amount of apple carnage (and by ‘certain amount’ I mean ‘all over the kitchen’) and leave it at that.

I made the pie for a Single’s ministry Thanksgiving potluck at church, and it came out of the oven just in time to be whisked into the car, so I only had time for one quick shot:

Rather than make slits in the top of the pie crust, I used cookie cutters in leaf shapes. The pie seemed to be a big hit–half of it was gone by the time I got to the dessert table (and there were three dessert tables, one of them devoted entirely to pies). I certainly thought it was delicious–so delicious that I’m anxious to try it again! Maybe this time I’ll have the presence of mind to devote a blog post to it…

If I could have an Autumn to spend, somewhere with leaves that turn real colors and air that gets genuinely crisp, with nothing but my knitting and a stack of books…I think that would be very nice. I love knitting, but my enthusiasm for it wanes during the heat of the Summer, when it is too hot to go around with wool in your lap. I haven’t been completing very many knitting projects lately, but I did manage to finish two items just in time to send them off to have adventures without me–they went with my friend Mary to Prague! (but are modeled in the pictures below by me)

A neckwarmer is a wonderful thing–I improvised the cable pattern on this neckwarmer, and made it with knit one, purl one ribbing so that it’s reversible, and it has a loop and button to keep it snug on the other side. The hat was made with the Sweatshop of Love’s Slouchy Beret pattern.

On the first Saturday in December I’m planning to share a table at a craft fair with some friends of mine, so I’ve been working on a few items to sell–today I finished painting these peg dolls, which all represent the characters from the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red

And I worked on making these paper flowers, cut from dictionary pages coated in mod podge for durability

…there will be more on these crafts later, when I have completed projects to show you!

I did my crafting while watching my new DVD set of Doctor Who: Season 5, and speaking of Doctor Who…next Tuesday is TARDIS Day, when Doctor Who fans celebrate the first day that the classic science fiction show aired on British television. I’m celebrating my participating in a fan swap, and I put together a TARDIS themed package for my swap partner. I (of course) did a little crafting to go into it, so once my swappee has opened their package I’ll post pictures here!

The biggest thing that I am doing with my November, however, is NaNoWriMo–National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. Writing is hard work! Sometimes it’s delightful, sometimes it’s a dreadful slog, but it’s always rewarding. It helps that I decided to keep things easy this year–no complex plot for me! No attempt to say something profound about the human condition! The story I outlined is simple and (hopefully) amusing and light-hearted. There are nine days left!